Ecomyths is a blog designed to help people think for themselves. Empirical data are contrasted with theories to examine axiomatic myths: ideas taken to be so well accepted that they don't need to be proven. It seeks to change ideas, correct fallacies and challenge dominant constructs by having people read, think and reflect for themselves about contemporary issues. Facts don't change your perspective. Your perspective changes your facts.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Luddite's, sustainability and the human condition

Reaction to John Holdren's appointment as presidential science advisor continues. Al Fin asks: "we knew Obama was a fascist. But why did he have to go and be a Luddite fascist?"

Holdren's appointment is supposed to be some kind of victory for 'science' after the Bush administration. This highlights the vacuity of Bush's critics (that's no defense of Bush, by the way). As we can see, this 'science', isn't science. It is catastrophism (via environmental determinism and the precautionary principle), with almost no scientific basis.

If the only weapon that exists in the anti-Bush arsenal is a fiction, which is defended by contempt for scientific debate, what free debate - let alone scientific research - can we expect? Climate science has been thoroughly colonised by political interests.

Sadly, the as the reactions to John Tierney's follow up post indicate, a lot of people appear to have drunk, and drunk heavily, from the catastrophism Kool-Aid that is peddled as the predominant mantra of environmentalist dogma by the likes of Al Gore, Paul Ehrlich and Jared Diamond.

Obama’s headhunting amounts to a reinforcement of what spiked has called the New Scientism – the perversion of scientific data to reactionary political ends.

Worse, even when corrected, the Luddites still persist to assert their absolute adherence to catastrophism and their disregard for humanity, innovation, ingenuity and the capability of technology to fundamentally alter the dynamics of sustainability.

This is why ideology is so important. As the banner for this site states: facts don't change your perspective -- your perspective changes your facts. Is the greater peril to humanity the uncertain dynamics of technological progress and prosperity, or the controlling stasism of authoritarian dogma and elitist moralism? Those that are free, economically and politically, will always choose the dynamics of progress. Those who are oppressed by fear, and the elite who exert that control, will always push the "necessity" for stasist measures to preserve that hegemony.

About Me

Dr. L. Graham Smith has over thirty years experience as a researcher, teacher and consultant in resources management. The author of over 70 publications, his writings successfully balance academic and practical considerations and provide a systematic framework for empowering change. His areas of expertise include: environmental ideology; globalization; the dynamics of change; the design and implementation of strategic planning processes; sustainability and its implementation; individual and institutional capacity building; educational praxis and, skills development.

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Sustainability

Sustainability is the capacity of a system to engage in the complexities of continuous improvement consistent with deep values of human purpose. Fullan (2005)

Dynamism is Freedom

Political tags - such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth - are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. Heinlein

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The more you love, the more you can love--and the more intensely you love. Nor is there any limit on how many you can love. If a person had time enough, he could love all of that majority who are decent and just. Heinlein.